Professor Dame Elizabeth Nneka Anionwu OM DBE FRCN is a British-Nigerian nurse, health care administrator, lecturer & Emeritus Professor of Nursing at the University of West London. Anionwu overcame a difficult childhood to become the UK’s first sickle-cell and thalassemia nurse specialist. She helped create the Brent Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia Counselling Centre in 1979.
In 1998, Anionwu established the Mary Seacole Centre for Nursing Practice at the University of West London. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017. She remains a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
Since retiring in 2007, Anionwu has published her memoirs, Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union and Dreams from My Mother (2021). Dame Elizabeth is one of only two black women to be granted the Order of Merit in 2022, in the late Queen’s final Honours’ list. She was privileged to carry the Orb at King Charles’ Coronation in May 2023.
Ref: Dame Elizabeth Nneka Anionwu – Elizabeth Anionwu
Photo By Michael – https://www.flickr.com/photos/obliquepanic/35389879750/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112840050
